Job Mobility and Migration in a High Income Rural Community. Research Bulletin No. 708.

Olson, Philip G.

The analysis of the factors affecting job mobility and migration in a high income rural community is based on a model developed in this document which proved to be a generator of fruitful hypotheses. The study of the Brookston, Indiana, community revealed that job-mobile individuals tended to be younger, had lower incomes, and had lower social status. Migrant individuals tended to be younger, had lower incomes, had more education, and came more frequently from the middle social strata. Migration referred to the movement of a person from one community to another. Motivation underlying job mobility and migration centered on a desire for economic betterment or improved social status. A distinction between voluntary and involuntary mobility and migration, relative to giving up farming, indicated that the voluntary individuals moved to jobs closely associated with past experience while non-voluntary individuals moved to positions of a semiskilled and unskilled nature. Suggestions for further research and policy development conclude the report. A related document is RC 003 823. (DK)